Sunday, October 02, 2005
The History of Coffee
Nearly five centuries ago, a group of explorers came to the Americas searching for riches. They landed in Central America and began to interact with the indigenous people in hopes of learning where the riches of the land might be found. What they didn’t know was that the natives of the land were pranksters. These fun loving people filled the explorers minds with stories of golden cities and fountains of youth and introduced them to the coffee bean.
Here’s how it happened. One day, an advisor to the chief said to the portly ruler, “Hey, Chief, you know those beans growing on the mountainside? You know, the really bitter ones? I bet these idiots would eat them if we told them they were food.” After a good laugh, the chief agreed to the plan. Sure enough, the greedy visitors, wanting to appear gracious so the natives would open up to them about where the cities of gold were, ate the bitter bean and, through contorted faces, smiled. The natives, of course thought this was hilarious.
The next day, the advisor approached the chief again. “I’ll bet,” he said, “if we ground those beans up and put some in water, the idiots would drink it.” The chief, thinking that no one would be that stupid, bet his favorite ceremonial mask that they wouldn’t. The chief lost.
How the explorers failed to realize that coffee was a joke, especially after they failed to locate the mythological treasures the natives told them about, escapes me, but they did. As a result, the explorers brought coffee back to Europe where it rotted teeth, ate the lining of the stomach, and kept people awake at night. And thus began the infatuation with the drink known as coffee.
You may be wondering how such a bitter drink managed to last so long especially when tea was perfectly palatable. And if you weren’t wondering before you read that last sentence, you probably are now. The only logical answer is peer pressure.
Social acceptance is a powerful force. Every day, kids are prompted to do things they think will gain them acceptance by their peers. Thus the term peer pressure. Peer pressure works two ways: directly and indirectly. If a group of “cool” boys has done something, they may pressure another to do it also, implying or stating straight out that if the new boy does it he’ll be accepted into the group and if he doesn’t, he won’t be. Indirect peer pressure works a little differently, but is peer pressure just the same. If a boy knows that the “cool” guys do something, he may decide to do the same thing in hopes that the guys will notice and include him. Notice that the boy took it upon himself in this case; there was no direct pressure brought to bear, but social acceptance led to the indirect peer pressure. (Also notice that I used boys in the above descriptions. This is not to imply that girls are immune. Rather, it is because boys are more prone to doing what they think will impress others: urinating on an electric fence, being a matador, etc.)
So the explorers, upon returning from their journey, had become somewhat accustomed to the taste of coffee as long as copious amounts of sugar and milk were available. Not wanting to have their entire endeavor seen as a failure, they began boasting about the wonderful beans they found. They drank their drink (by now they were able to do so with straight faces and without the involuntary neck twitches) and offered it to others. Now, these were rugged men, men who had braved two ocean voyages. If they drank coffee, every man would want to drink it. Initially, of course, women were smart enough to avoid it.
Soon, men were drinking it straight as a testament to their manhood. The stronger the brew, the stronger the man, they reasoned. This remained the norm for quite some time until someone decided to decaffeinate the popular drink. Evidently, this individual decided that, while an awful taste, rotten teeth, and a ruined stomach were okay, sleeplessness was not an option. I guess drinking something else wasn’t an option either.
But this wasn’t the only change to come to coffee. The French, who to this day still think they’re better than everyone else on the face of the earth, decided that they didn’t want to drink the same drink everyone else was drinking. So they began experimenting with coffee. They put different flavors in it, whipped it into a froth, and gave it fancy sounding names (well, the names sounded fancy to the rest of Europe; to the French they were regular sounding names). They changed coffee so much that one wonders why they just didn’t make a new drink that wasn’t coffee-based? But we all know that, had they gone that route, they wouldn’t have been able to be as snooty about their accomplishment then, would they?
The Irish also changed coffee, but at least their change was practical. Irishmen, frustrated that their wives were complaining about their drinking, decided to add whiskey to their brew in an effort to fool them. It worked for a while. By the time their wives discovered what they were doing, the men were all too drunk to care about the screaming. Incidently, the Irish method revealed that, not only didn't whiskey make the coffee taste any worse, the coffee didn't make the whiskey taste any worse either.
Today, in addition to the home brewed caffeinated and decaffeinated varieties, we have all the fancy coffee drinks we could ever want: the cappuccino, the late’, the frappe’, the mocha. And we’ve got them with nutmeg, peppermint, cinnamon, or essence of old hiking boot, whatever you want. Me? If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m not much of a coffee drinker. I prefer something with a little more kick. Would anyone like to join me for a nice, tall glass of (twitch) sauerkraut juice?
Here’s how it happened. One day, an advisor to the chief said to the portly ruler, “Hey, Chief, you know those beans growing on the mountainside? You know, the really bitter ones? I bet these idiots would eat them if we told them they were food.” After a good laugh, the chief agreed to the plan. Sure enough, the greedy visitors, wanting to appear gracious so the natives would open up to them about where the cities of gold were, ate the bitter bean and, through contorted faces, smiled. The natives, of course thought this was hilarious.
The next day, the advisor approached the chief again. “I’ll bet,” he said, “if we ground those beans up and put some in water, the idiots would drink it.” The chief, thinking that no one would be that stupid, bet his favorite ceremonial mask that they wouldn’t. The chief lost.
How the explorers failed to realize that coffee was a joke, especially after they failed to locate the mythological treasures the natives told them about, escapes me, but they did. As a result, the explorers brought coffee back to Europe where it rotted teeth, ate the lining of the stomach, and kept people awake at night. And thus began the infatuation with the drink known as coffee.
You may be wondering how such a bitter drink managed to last so long especially when tea was perfectly palatable. And if you weren’t wondering before you read that last sentence, you probably are now. The only logical answer is peer pressure.
Social acceptance is a powerful force. Every day, kids are prompted to do things they think will gain them acceptance by their peers. Thus the term peer pressure. Peer pressure works two ways: directly and indirectly. If a group of “cool” boys has done something, they may pressure another to do it also, implying or stating straight out that if the new boy does it he’ll be accepted into the group and if he doesn’t, he won’t be. Indirect peer pressure works a little differently, but is peer pressure just the same. If a boy knows that the “cool” guys do something, he may decide to do the same thing in hopes that the guys will notice and include him. Notice that the boy took it upon himself in this case; there was no direct pressure brought to bear, but social acceptance led to the indirect peer pressure. (Also notice that I used boys in the above descriptions. This is not to imply that girls are immune. Rather, it is because boys are more prone to doing what they think will impress others: urinating on an electric fence, being a matador, etc.)
So the explorers, upon returning from their journey, had become somewhat accustomed to the taste of coffee as long as copious amounts of sugar and milk were available. Not wanting to have their entire endeavor seen as a failure, they began boasting about the wonderful beans they found. They drank their drink (by now they were able to do so with straight faces and without the involuntary neck twitches) and offered it to others. Now, these were rugged men, men who had braved two ocean voyages. If they drank coffee, every man would want to drink it. Initially, of course, women were smart enough to avoid it.
Soon, men were drinking it straight as a testament to their manhood. The stronger the brew, the stronger the man, they reasoned. This remained the norm for quite some time until someone decided to decaffeinate the popular drink. Evidently, this individual decided that, while an awful taste, rotten teeth, and a ruined stomach were okay, sleeplessness was not an option. I guess drinking something else wasn’t an option either.
But this wasn’t the only change to come to coffee. The French, who to this day still think they’re better than everyone else on the face of the earth, decided that they didn’t want to drink the same drink everyone else was drinking. So they began experimenting with coffee. They put different flavors in it, whipped it into a froth, and gave it fancy sounding names (well, the names sounded fancy to the rest of Europe; to the French they were regular sounding names). They changed coffee so much that one wonders why they just didn’t make a new drink that wasn’t coffee-based? But we all know that, had they gone that route, they wouldn’t have been able to be as snooty about their accomplishment then, would they?
The Irish also changed coffee, but at least their change was practical. Irishmen, frustrated that their wives were complaining about their drinking, decided to add whiskey to their brew in an effort to fool them. It worked for a while. By the time their wives discovered what they were doing, the men were all too drunk to care about the screaming. Incidently, the Irish method revealed that, not only didn't whiskey make the coffee taste any worse, the coffee didn't make the whiskey taste any worse either.
Today, in addition to the home brewed caffeinated and decaffeinated varieties, we have all the fancy coffee drinks we could ever want: the cappuccino, the late’, the frappe’, the mocha. And we’ve got them with nutmeg, peppermint, cinnamon, or essence of old hiking boot, whatever you want. Me? If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m not much of a coffee drinker. I prefer something with a little more kick. Would anyone like to join me for a nice, tall glass of (twitch) sauerkraut juice?
Labels: coffee, history coffee
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